Photo Plus - UK (2020-04)

44 http://www.digitalcameraworld.com

THE MISSION

Construct a wispy

smoke-filled

portrait

Time needed

Two hours

Skill level

Intermediate

Kit needed

• Speedlite


• Incense stick


• Tripod


• Black backdrop


• Photoshop

Up in smoke

James Paterson creates a striking smoky portrait effect with

simple camera skills, lighting tricks, and Photoshop brushes

here are three parts to

this fun smoky portrait

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stages involve shooting

the smoke and portrait.

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photograph a person side-on

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light backdrop. You may even

already have an image that would

be perfect (if you just want to test

out your Photoshop skills, you can

use the portrait we’ve supplied).

As for the smoke images, if you

like you can skip this stage and

use the smoke brushes we’ve

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download link below left. But it’s

more satisfying to make your

own. All you need is a Speedlite

and an incense stick or vape.

Within a few minutes, you can

capture a range of unique smoke

images to use in your project.

Stage three is where we bring

everything together in Photoshop.

It might seem like a complicated

effect, but the good news is that,

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stages right, then stage three is

simpler than you might think. All

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with the smoke. To do this we can

make use of Photoshop’s Brush

command, which allows us to

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we like. As such we can turn our

smoke images into brush tips for

use, not just in this project, but

also for any other smoky effects

you might like to try.

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DOWNLOAD PROJECT FILES
TO YOUR COMPUTER FROM:
http://downloads.
photoplusmag.com/pp163.zip